


Catch And Release

by PatrickArch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatrickArch/pseuds/PatrickArch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracer is captured by Talon after a fight. Taken prisoner, she might never escape; if it wasn't for her man on the inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     She woke up shivering, the drugs making her sluggish system more sensitive to the cold. The prison infirmary had been warm, hot even, as she fell asleep. But now, under the pale blueish light of the moon, she felt like she'd been dumped in an ice bath.

     Sounds. That's what had woken the Overwatch agent; trained to be alert and ready at the drop of a needle. Voices, grumbling sounds she couldn't decipher the meaning of. Except for one of them; deep and guttural with perpetual rage, husky and raspy like a whisper in a storm.

     She barely saw it. Felt it, really, more than anything. The temperature drop, the stuffy feeling that she wasn't alone anymore. The tingle of her sixth sense at the thick dark fog pouring through the door. Her heart clenched as she recognized the form the miasmic gasous form was taking. She was all alone, tied to a bed, drugged, injured and with no hope of back-up; up against _the Reaper_.

     He stood there, watching, silently judging; a stark contrast to the violent and enraged harvinger of death she saw glimpses of on the battlefield. She knew more about it from field reports than first hand experience. She had never truly appreciated this before now.

     The otherwise silent room was now filled by two terrifyingly present sounds. His low, slow and steady raspy breathing. Her high-strung, rapid and quickly becoming erratic heartbeat; blood pumping through her temples. She caught a glint of the moonlight off his bony mask, his talons catching her eye as well; she knew if she hadn't been strapped down... She'd have fled with her tail between her legs.

     She only just now realized that all the rumours about death walking among the ranks of Talon; the vengeful wraith that took down countless Overwatch agents, had phased through a wall, to get to _her_. If she hadn't been stupefied by terror - after all, _Reaper_  had come to, likely, _handle_  her - she would have gushed over the impressive power that resembled her blinking ability.

     "Tracer," he rasped. Her heart stopped. Then sprinted a staccato beat of fear, trepidation and another ugly, twisted feeling. Validation. She felt validated that him, Reaper - the _most wanted man in the world_  - not only knew who she was, but for all intents and purposes _broke_  into her detention unit. Who else could claim that?

     But if she only knew why her name came so easily to him... Behind the mask of the Reaper stood, if only for a moment, Gabriel Reyes. The once proud leader of Blackwatch, proponent of Overwatch and senior officer to Lena Oxton, also known as Tracer... In his world-weary eyes, she was still a child; an Overwatch agent, but a child nonetheless.

     "Disgusting," he growled, his voice thicker, but betraying none of the conflict he felt. It was directed at both he and Overwatch; himself for _having_  emotions towards her and Overwatch... In general.

     She felt her heart stutter to a pitiful stop for an instant too long. What was disgusting? Was he talking about her appearance? Usually she would've quipped some snarky yet playful remark, but now she only worried it would send him into his world-feared rage. Or maybe he was talking about the fact she got captured, despite her speed and blink ability - a comment on her lack of skill and long-term experience. Or maybe it was directed at her, as a person? 

     "Using children to fight for their cause... How low has Overwatch sunken," Reaper growled, taking a step closer.

      _Children?_  Overwatch would never! Besides, how would Reaper even guess that? Just by looking at her? How? She wanted to reply, to shout, to tell him to rightly bugger off. But her voice caught in her throat.

     Suddenly, the man - the _thing_  - in front of her exuded authority, it intimidated her. It was so similar, yet terrifyingly different to 76's disciplining stance that she found herself gobsmacked. Reaper had only crossed his arms.

     "You were so young... I remember." The words lingered, the disgusted angry tone from earlier gone; a whisper in the breeze, replaced by melancholy. World-weariness.

     "R-Remember what?" she asked tentatively.

     The man in front of her said nothing. Wordlessly, he approached her bedside and, despite everything she had learned about him; dashing all the expectations she had of him eviscerating her, torturing and murdering her... He sat. Rather unceremoniously too, only slowing down as to not jostle her.

     "Lena," he said, voice gruff and authoritive. Like a commanding offer. Like _her_  commanding officer. "The guards rotate at oh-five hundred; a twenty minute window until your cell is fully monitored starts then. Do you copy?"

     Shocked, gobsmacked and just _so_  confused; it was all she could manage to commit the info to memory and nod jerkily.

     He droned on, his voice curiously familiar now, despite the raspy and windy quality to it. "Your IV will have run out by oh-three hundred. Don't waste time trying to gather intel. Head North-North-East for fiften clicks. Clear?"

     "S-Sir!" She whispered. Why was he helping her? Was it a trap? Had he set a bug on her? Or worse, _in_  her? "Why should I trust you?" she demanded, her words as shaky as her breathing.

     "You shouldn't," he replied. "But... You're just a child, Lena."

     "H-How do you know my name?"

     "The same way you know mine; I told you."

     She froze; she had never met him, much less had a conversation with the man - passing insults and taunts as she zipped by him in a scuffle at most. Her name rarely came up in discussions nowadays; the only company she kept were her teammates.

     "Who are you?" Her words were spoken softly, even for whispering. A disturbing contrast to the sunny, energetic young woman she usually was. Her eyes searched his mask, bore into his eye-holes for a sign, for anything.

     He sighed - or produced a deep rattling breath that felt and sounded like one - and looked away in an uncharacteristic display. Despite his hulking frame, he looked _small_. Shoulders hunched, hands between his knees, looking away, and looking _down_.

     She couldn't help herself. "What's wrong, love?" It just came out; in the odd few minutes she'd seen him up close, she felt an odd aura from him. Oddly familiar.

     "You never saw this," he told her.

     "What're yo-"

     " _Never_." he ground out. "You never saw this."

     "I'm drugged and asleep, r'member?"

     He sighed - definitely, she knew that type of sigh anywhere. It was the "dad sigh" that 76 made whenever he found her stuck somewhere, or when she managed to slip puns in mission reports. A short breath, exhaled through the nose.

     Just as she was about to quip anout how much he was being domestic, she saw his hand move. Towards his mask.

 

     "G-Gabe?"


	2. Chapter 2

     His face. It had been _his face_. But how? Gabe had died all those years ago in the Swiss headquarters. His body was never found but they had all knew just where he'd been when the explosion went off.

     Cinderblocks blown to smithereens, updending chokingly thick dust everywhere; steel beams broken, molten, crushing and burning any and all evidence. Gabe had been the nearest, and there had been a crater. _A crater_  where it had gone off; anything in it had been sterilized.

     But she had seen his face. And while she was mostly convinced it had been an odd drug-induced dream, came three a.m. she began to be more lucid. The i.v. had stopped pouring drugs in her system. By four she managed to free herself from the restraints and by five after five she was already running out of the base. She ran as far as her legs could carry her; until she reached the absolute edge of her considerable stamina - which, even without her special abilities was exceptional - and then she relied on her chronal accelerator to help her push through and create as much distance between her, and Talon. Even if her... vision hadn't been imaginary, she couldn't trust it. She tried to justify to herself that Reaper, of all people, wouldn't let her go without ulterior motives.

     Despite how she felt an inexplicable hurt at thinking so lowly of Gabe; Tracer didn't trust for a second that she hadn't been implanted somehow with a - ironically enough - tracer; or some sort of subconscious mind control. Something that she wouldn't be able to detect, but something that made her feel she had to do what she'd been "oh so politely asked" to do. But because she was aware of the fact, and that Overwatch had trained its agents to fight against such tactics, she feared not. Much. Because it was _Gabe_  who had told her how and when to leave. The demanding C.O. who had been like a rock for her when she was lost in the rapids of time. He'd been so frustratingly constant in being himself that she always felt in sync when he was there. Like with Morisson, she couldn't help but trust him still. However, Tracer did not trust, not even for millisecond - hell, not even for a fanto-second - the information that _Reaper_ fed her. For all she knew, they had an agent waiting there to trail her and whoever would be picking her up after she called. She had to make sure she wasn't unwittingly participating in Talon's plot.

     She shook her head, these ruminations would have to wait until after she got back and went through a complete physical - and maybe psyche - eval. Who knew what Talon did to her when she was unconscious.

     It came as a stark realization, along with nearly tripping face first into the ground, that she didn't know just how long she'd been out. With no possible way to know the date, she could only assume the worst. The last thing she remembered before waking up was being in the thick of it. It'd been midday, hot and she was running on fumes. No useful information.

     She slowed her sprint to a tense jog as she neared the city. The cracked pavement and bleak atmosphere reassured her somewhat, even if it felt like hell on her feet; if she could find a payphone she could call for help. A diner or a corner store would surely be able to help her. The nearer the better; she feared that if she followed Reaper's instructions to the letter she'd make her teammates walk right into a trap.

     Walking into a 24hr fast-food place that, luckily enough, still had an old payphone in one of its entrances; she picked it up immediately. It took her a few moments to decide what to say. And then she paranoied that this might exactly be what Talon wanted. For her to forgo Reaper's instructions and to call her teammates... but she felt like she had no choice, Overwatch needed to know her whereabouts to devise a plan.

     She composed Winston's number as it was the firts that came to mind and she made sure to make it a collect call. "Tracer," she said at the prompted message, and then muttered the traditional "pick up, pick up, pick up, pick _up_ ," mantra.

      Eventually, she heard the blessed voice of a teammate - though it wasn't Winston, but rather Jesse, surprisingly.

     "Holy shit, girl! Where're ya?! We've been doin' graveyard shifts tryna find ya!" he shouted as soon as they were patched through.

     She laughed, a breathy and relieved laugh. "Jesse, it's good to hear from You, luv! I escaped a Talon base I-"

     "Woah, woah, wait _what?!_ " She heard some fumbling and a distant cry to trace - ha ha - her position. "Hun, y'safe?" he demanded.

    "Yeah I-I think so, but maybe they... you know..." she hesitated.

     Jesse replied with a dark hum of understanding. "Listen. We'll get ya safe 'n sound; we won't stop 'til you're back with us and healthy as a horse." He paused. "And if they did somethin' to ya - whatever it is - we'll make sure y'get better, 'kay?"

     She nodded, holding onto the receiver tightly. "'Kay... listen I... Something odd happened when I woke up there."

     She could practically see him lift his hat to scratch at his scraggly mane of hair. "Yeah?" he sighed.

     "B-But I think I should wait to tell the others... it's important, I think, that they know."

     "I can tell 'em if it's vital," he assured her. "But if the line ain't secure... Relax, somebody's on their way-"

     "Have they left? Can they bring clothes and shoes? I'm kind of barefoot in a hospital gown..."

     There was quiet mumbling for a moment before McCree replied. "They'll bring clothes for ya. Is your chronal thingamajig workin' fine?"

     She placed a hand on her chronal accelerator subconsciously. "Yeah, it's tip top, Jesse... thanks for asking," she said, feeling genuinely thankful for his worry.

     "'S what friends do innit?" he asked rhetorically. "Listen, your extraction team oughtta be there in a few. In the meantime I'mma keep talkin' to you. Make sure nothin' goes tits up."

     Again, she laughed, if only because of his strange expression. "Yeah, sure, whatever you say Woody."

     Now it was his turn to chuckle. "Careful, or ya might find a snake in your sneakers later, lil missy."

     In the moments where she waited for her team to arrive she was truly glad that it was Jesse that had picked up; he always knew how to make her laugh. The minutes went by blissfully quickly, if still feeling tense as she kept a constant vigil. But her team knew; she had told them she might be messed up, they knew she might be tailed and at the very least Jesse knew she had some intel about something. All in all better than she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I hadn't planned on continuing this story. But after some positive feedback and debating, I decided to keep going. The chapters will be short and unbeta'ed to make it easier on myself and it'll hopefully be update along To Pick Up The Pieces and I Never Wanted This (on FF only). Please leave a comment!


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